The Web contains many useful tools for lawyers such as the website of the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII), which provides access to a wealth of statutes and cases. The Web has many other useful tools of course.
For example, LEGISinfo bills itself as
an essential research tool for finding information on legislation currently before Parliament. This tool provides electronic access to a wide range of information about individual bills
The website admonishes its users to “check this [page] regularly for updates on bills,” but that does not seem to be necessary given that the site makes developments on each bill accessible through a news feed. For example, being a tax practitioner, I need to keep track of the progress of Bill C-33. I can now subscribe to a feed about the Bill through my newsreader to be notified automatically when the status of the Bill changes. My newsreader in turn aggregates on one page “news” about changes to all of the sites on the web that I read regularly. If the content of one of those sites (or a portion of one of those sites) changes, I am notified automatically, and the notification includes a brief summary or outline of the nature of the change. Clicking on a link in the LEGISinfo news summary will take me to a page containing the complete history of the bill from First Reading to the date it comes into force after enactment. A useful tool indeed!
